VOLYN LOCAL HISTORY MUSEUM AND ITS MONUMENTS: LOSSES DURING THE SECOND WORLD WAR

Abstract

The article examined the formation of the Volyn Museum during the Polish, Soviet and German occupation of the region from the late 20’s to 40’s of the 20th century. Attention is focused on the losses of the museum during the German occupation of 1941–1944 years. Sources for the study of lost monuments during the Second World War are analyzed and introduced into scientific circulation. Museum traditions have been formed in Volyn since the second half of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries. These are the museum of Baron F. Steingel in Gorodok, the Volyn eparchial and local lore museum in Zhytomyr, the museum of the Orthodox St. Vladimir’s Brotherhood in Volodymyr-Volynsky, the museum of the Ostroh Brotherhood in Ostroh, the Rivne Museum at the local agricultural society and the Museum of the Exaltation of the Cross. Their collections included archeological monuments, archival documents, manuscripts and old prints, paintings and iconography, decorative and utility purposes, especially church antiquities. Rich collections were practically lost until the 1920s. This article reveals the circumstances of the restoration of museum activities in the region with the opening of the Volyn Museum. The main activities of the museum in the pre-war period are considered and an analysis of the state of affairs during the Soviet and German occupation of the region from 1939 to 1944 years is given. It is determined that most of the exhibits were lost in late 1943–early 1944 years, during the retreat of German troops. It was found that by the mid-1990s of the 20th century the number and register of missing historical and artistic values of the museum’s funds were not determined due to a number of circumstances, so compiling a complete list of museum exhibits lost by the Volyn Museum of Local Lore during the Second World War is not a complete task.